Lending a Hand

So it's Winter Break and I wanted to do something productive.  Yesterday, I went to Carmei Ha'ir, check out their website, a soup kitchen near the Machane Yehudah Shuk here in Jerusalem.  My friend Ruth volunteers there every week so I thought I'd tag along.  It was very cool to help out.  This soup kitchen is unique in that it has more of a restaurant feel than a soup kitchen.  We serve the patrons and ask them which meal they want rather than having them come through a serving line.  I started off helping to set the tables with silverware and a bowl of soup at each seat.  Then as people came in I asked them which main dish they wanted- meat or kuba.  Kuba is an iraqi food usually something like a breaded beef pattie but this version was vegetarian.  Every person got vegetables and spaghetti as well.  Some people had special requests such as no pasta or no vegetables.  As people left, I helped clear the tables, took the used plates and utensils to the person doing  the dishes, and prepped the tables for new people.  When the crowd died down, I helped clean up everything.  I had a great time, was able to practice my Hebrew, and received many Todah Rabahs (Thank Yous).  Hopefully I'll have some time to go back a few times before I leave Israel.

Speaking of volunteering, back in November, our group took part in a project of Leket Yisrael, Israel's national food bank organization.  They take leftover food from bar mitzvahs, weddings, bakeries, etc. as well as extra produce from farms all over Israel and distribute them to soup kitchens and other social service organizations that provide food to people in need.  Leket לקט is a word found in the bible to describe the tradition of leaving extras for the poor when gleaning your fields: "When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings." (Deuteronomy 24:19)

Leket Yisrael, one of their huge trucks to transport food

Our group was taken to a farm in Rehovot and assigned the task of picking oranges.  Basically, farmers aren't always able to pick all of their fruits and vegetables in time before they go bad, so this farmer has Leket assist and then they have access to the extra produce.  I paired up with my friend Ruth and we tried to pick as many oranges as we could find.  We filled up cartons and dumped them into a huge vat.  I had a lot of fun doing this.  Don't be fooled, these are indeed oranges.  Apparently due to the water shortage in Israel, the orange do not actually turn orange.  However, I can attest that they were indeed delicious oranges.  (We were allowed to taste some.)  Our group picked a total of 500 kilos of oranges (about 1100 pounds) which were then put in food packages for about 250 families I believe!  All of that in less than an hour of picking!

getting all up in the tree to pick those oranges

one of the many cartons we filled

For more information about the places I mentioned above or to make a donation, feel free to check out their websites:
Carmei Ha'ir Soup Kitchen
Leket Yisrael

Happy Chanukah! !חנוכה שמח

Chanukah in Israel has been one of the things I've been looking forward to the most.  Every December, I have found myself surrounded by a lot of Christmas decorations, hearing Christmas songs on the radio and in every store, and being wished a Merry Christmas.  No offense to all of my friends who celebrate Christmas and/or enjoy the Christmas atmosphere... but it has truly been nice to be surrounded by Chanukah instead.  Here is a glimpse of how I celebrated the holiday in Jerusalem.

On the first night of Chanukah, a bunch of us gathered in our apartment lobby and lit Chanukiyot (hebrew for Menorahs) together.

Those little tin menorahs were donated to us by a man in Tzfat.  He sent us back to Jerusalem with 25 of them, including boxes of candles!

It is tradition to eat food made with oil to remember the miracle of the Chanukah (there was only enough oil to last 1 day but it lasted 8 days).  Doughnuts are a popular Chanukah treat.  Here in Israel they are called Sufganiyot and they are EVERYWHERE!  One evening, Olivia, Shai, and I ventured to Ne'eman bakery for my very first Sufganiya!

Jelly-filled and Chocolate filled

My first bite of a sufganiya! (it was quite a disappointment as there wasn't any jelly inside)

Everywhere I looked, there were chanukiyot.  Menorahs like one were pretty much placed on every street corner!

Lit up menorahs were hung from every lamppost in the city center!

On the 6th night, Danit, Carolyn, Denise, Dina, & I went for some sufganiyot at Rolladin in Mamilla mall.  They only had 2 flavors left- pistachio and sweet popcorn.  Denise and I shared a sweet popcorn one but I wasn't such a fan of it- a little too buttery tasting for me.  We then went to the Jaffa Gate in the Old City and were met by this beautiful blue Chanukiyah.

Carolyn, Dina, & I walked around town while Denise and Danit went to the kotel.  In Kikar Safra, we came upon this enormous Chanukiah.

Trying to make it look like I'm holding the base of the Chanukiya

On the 7th night, our group took our usual Tuesday siyur (trip/tour) but we waited until the evening.  We were guided through the neighborhood of Nachlaot where we saw many many homes with their Chanukiyot outside.  It is Jewish tradition to put your menorahs in the windows for everyone to see.  Here in Israel (and probably in other Jewish neighborhoods all over the world), people put their Chanukiyot in boxes so they can be placed outside.  Notice that this Chanukiya does not use candles, instead oil is used to replicate what our ancestors used to light the Menorah.

So many menorahs!  

For the last night, I decided to fry up some cheese latkes.  Potato latkes (pancakes) are more commonly eaten on Chanukah, but this is a recipe that my mom has made for years.  No matter how many times I try, they still do not look or taste as good as my mommy's latkes.  My friends here all said they were delicious though so I guess my effort was a success.

I cannot take credit for this awesome picture of my delicious latke.  Twas the work of PJ Edelman,

Once again we all gathered to light the Chanukiyot together.  It's always a little sad when the 8th night comes around because we now have to wait a whole year (well a Jewish year) until we see the beautiful lights of the Chanukiya once again.  I hope you all had a wonderful light-filled Chanukah!

  

Don't be fooled by the lack of pictures documenting my sufganiyot consumption.  During these 8 days, I ate many more than I'd like to admit...

11/8/10: Women of the Wall נשות הכותל

Early last month, I got up at the crack of dawn to celebrate Rosh Chodesh with Women of the Wall/ נשות הכותל (Nashot HaKotel).  Rosh Chodesh, the first day of each Hebrew month, coincides with the New Moon.  We are commanded to recognize it as we would other festivals.  Women of the Wall is an organization of women who "strive to achieve the right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem, Israel."  The Western Wall is a holy site for Jewish people but collective prayer on the women's side is frowned upon.  As their website explains, "On December 4th 2001, bill number 1924 was voted on and became law in the Knesset.  The bill is an amendment to the Holy sites Law of 1967 and reads, 'No ceremony shall be held in the Wall’s women’s section.  That includes reading from a Torah, blowing the ram’s horn, wearing prayer shawls or phylacteries.  Violators shall be imprisoned for seven years.'  Some women have been arrested in the past, but this has not stopped the group from continuing their monthly ritual of praying at the wall.


Ruth and I met up with her friend Steven and his roommate and the four of us walked about 45 minutes to the Old City.  Once at the wall, we parted from the guys to go to our respective sides.  Though the service was conducted on the women's side, there were many men there to support the group and they came up to the mechitza (barrier between the sides) to participate in our service.  I put on my tallit (prayer shawl) that I brought with me to Israel but had not yet used here as most of the synagogues I'd been going to were on the Orthodox end of the spectrum of Judaism where women do not wear tallit.   Overall the service was uneventful (as in no one got arrested).  There were plenty of security guards and many photographers.  The only disruption came from a man who was standing on a chair, yelling.  I could not understand what he was saying but I had a feeling it involved unpleasantries and was directed towards us.  I later found out I was correct.  

the group of women standing in front of me

After the Shacharit service we paraded, while singing, to another section of the Western Wall where Torah reading is allowed.  This section does not have separate sections for men and women and it is where many congregations go for Bar and Bat Mitzvahs.  

Getting the Torah ready for the reading

Hagbah- lifting the Torah

Something else interesting from their website:
"In Hebrew, the word for women is nashim. Since – im is generally a masculine plural ending and -ot is generally the feminine plural ending, nashim is an exception to the linguistic rule. We chose to use nashot, similar to the way some American feminist have chosen to use womyn (for woman) and wimmin (for women). It is a pro-female assertion that seeks to remove the linguistic dependency of the word woman or women on the word man or men, since unfortunately these female words have largely and historically been characterized as a “derivative” of the male, a statement which has social implications."


I'm looking forward to joining the Women of the Wall again this month!

11/2/10: Zichron Ya'akov

At the beginning of November, our group visited Zichron Ya'akov, one of the first settlements of Jewish Pioneers in Israel.  We went to Ramat Hanadiv gardens, saw the grave of Baron Edward James de Rothschild, founder of the settlement, visited a museum about the 1st Aliyah (group of people moving to Israel), and had lunch in a cute shopping center area.  

Danit & Me at Ramat Hanadiv

Almost died when I saw this... but I think it's actually pretty common as bus drivers need their beauty sleep too

Chinese Food menu... amusing to see pork written in Hebrew (literal translation is white meat)

After lunch, we visited Tishbi Winery where we toured and tasted delicious wines.  I pretended to remember things I learned in the Wines course I took Senior year at Cornell.  

Sharing my wine expertise... 

We ended our trip with a hike along the shore of the Dor Habonim beach and enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

Soooo pretty

Awesome bed of seashells instead of sand

Every Sunset in Israel is AMAZING

  

10/28/10: Race for the Cure

On October 28th, I participated in the first ever Jerusalem Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with my program as part of the Young Judaea Hadassah group.  This event was close to my heart as I thought of my Aunt Sandy who lost her battle with breast cancer 9 years ago.  We were among the 5,000 people who walked through the streets of Jerusalem with our cool new T-shirts to help raise awareness of the cause.

Me, Danit, Marlowe, & Ethan

"Find a cure before I grow boobs!"

Senator Joe Lieberman was there!

Meet me at the Crossroads

So I know I've been posting about all of my fun adventures, and I still have many more on which to report, but I also know a lot of you are wondering what I'm doing for my internship experience here.  Let me premise this with the unfortunate reality that I am not "allowed" to do therapy here because the internship is only four months long (we didn't begin until October 15th.  Most of you know that it is not ideal to start developing a relationship with a client that will inevitably be cut short.  Yes, turnover is huge in the social work field, and there is nothing to do to prevent unexpected terminations.  Short-term therapy is a possibility--this is the work I was doing in my position as a functional family therapist prior to coming to Israel--however long-term therapy seems to be the trend here.  In my case, it would be unethical to begin providing treatment knowing I am leaving.  Therefore I've had to be flexible in finding an appropriate internship with duties that will allow me to utilize my strengths as well as help me gain experience in the social work field.  


My internship coordinator, Yonit, set me up with a place called Crossroads www.crossroadsjerusalem.org which works with English-speaking at-risk youth.  The agency has a drop in center where kids can hang out, watch tv, get help with finding a job, receive therapy and/or case management, participate in cooking, art, movie night, and more.  Right now I've been working on helping the center look nicer and making some posters and such.  Here is a picture of the Pinat Chashiva (Thinking Corner) that I put up a few weeks ago.  

Thinking Corner

The blank shapes are meant for the kids to write their thoughts and feelings about loss.  Unfortunately the kids have experienced various losses in their lives, more specifically, there have been kids who were somewhat associated with the center who died of drug overdoses in the recent months.  I'm still working on getting the kids to write things on the board...

My main role at Crossroads is to help put on a Talent Show of sorts.  We're calling it Crossroads Cafe and it's going to be a coffeehouse atmosphere for the kids, community, and supporters.  Many of the kids are really talented and we hope to get enough of them who are willing to share their talent with an audience.  It's been kinda slow though thus far because our vision is still a little unclear and a lot of worries and concerns have been brought up about the reality of something like this actually happening (i.e. getting community sponsors for food, having the kids commit to participating and actually show up, etc.).

In the meantime, I've been trying to get to know some of the kids just by hanging out with them during their afternoons at the center.  This is the time I really enjoy (besides having to deal with cigarette smoke as the kids are allowed to smoke in the center).  One of my first days there a girl began talking to me about alcohol consumption (she was concerned about her habits) and I directed her to appropriate resources that she might find helpful.  Just this week I heard from a kid who was into heroin but realized if he doesn't stop soon he won't have a long future ahead of him.  

Lastly, I am supposed to help out with street outreach at some point, hopefully soon.  On Thursdays and Saturdays the social workers and volunteers go out to the streets of the center city area of Jerusalem (near Ben Yehuda Street) to provide crisis intervention to the kids who hang out in Crack Square (named Crack Square because kids are "cracked out, cracked up" not necessarily on crack).  There is a huge community of English-speaking teens who get caught up in this scene of drinking, drugs, and violence.  Crossroads social workers make themselves visible while getting to know the kids on the streets in hopes that they will eventually make their way to the center to take part in all that Crossroads has to offer.  

I'll keep you all updated on my experience at Crossroads.

Blast from the Past

The weekend before last, I finally left Jerusalem and traveled via train to Binyamina to see my friend Khen.  Khen and I met in the summer of 1998 at Camp Tel Yehudah.  We spent 2 wonderful summers together at camp and then I, along with 7 other camp friends, stayed with Khen and her family in Timrat when we were here in the Summer of 2000.  Khen and I stayed in touch a bit afterwards but sadly lost touch right before she went into the army.  Sometime in the last couple of years, Khen found me on facebook and we reconnected!  Though this is my 3rd time back in Israel since 2000, we didn't have a chance to meet up during my previous trips.  So you can imagine how excited I was when we started talking on the phone this time around and trying to plan a time to see each other!

Khen picked me up from the train station and we stopped at her apartment to put my things down.  Then we went out to a delicious lunch with her boyfriend Ami, his mom, and his sister who were visiting.  They switched on and off between speaking Hebrew and English, but I got the gist of what was said in Hebrew.  Later, we looked at Khen's photo album from our 3 summers together and reminisced of the good old days.  Later, Khen's sisters Vered and Yael came over (I had met Vered 10 years ago, but Yael had been traveling abroad then).  We had dinner and watched some movies.   

The next morning, Khen took me to Ceasarea, where we walked around and enjoyed the amazing weather.  We had a delicious lunch of sushi (and even tried a strange roll of salmon, mozarella, and avocado).  Some of the rolls had tempura around them, and Khen referred them as schnitzel sushi.  Israelis just love to bread everything here!

Me and my new boyfriend

ancient ruins in Caesarea

more ancient ruins in Caesarea

headless statue

It was so great to see Khen after all these years, though it didn't seem like it had been 10 years.  We were able to pick up right where we left off!  It was so nice to just veg out and catch up.  Thank you to Khen and Ami for letting me stay at your lovely apartment.  Hopefully I'll take a few more weekend trips to visit them and Khen can be my tour guide to other exciting places.  Oh and I should probably take some pics of Khen and me together next time.  

Going Back to Biblical Times

A couple of weeks ago, we had our first official weekly Siyur (trip).  Each Tuesday we will be going on a day trip as a group to experience some awesome places in Israel.  The first trip we took was to Neot Kedumim, a Biblical Landscape Reserve.  Check out their website.  Here we did some team building activities after what felt like going back in time to Biblical days.  As you can see from the pictures below we had quite a lot of fun, especially when we had to herd sheep and goats across a field.  They were pretty stubborn though...  At the end of our adventures we made pitot (plural for pita).  It turns out there was a large group finishing a meal and they gave us all of their leftover food.  It was quite a spread of a few different salads, a delicious dill dip, chickpeas, carrots, rice, and more!

me and my new friends who i am about to herd

pulling up the rear (literally I had to patch them on the tuchas-tap them on the butt to get them moving)

our group herding up the animals

Ruth, Me, and Abby using a mortal and pestle to make Zatar

Tossing our pita dough on the fire

Finished Pita and I'm pretty sure that's dirt on my neck under my necklace... gotta love the outdoors

Rewind: Miscellaneous Adventures

So I've been here 6 weeks now which is about a quarter of the way through my stay and the longest I've been in Israel in one sitting (same as during the summer of 2000).  I'm slowly but surely catching you up on my adventures thus far.  Here are a few more highlights of the past few weeks...

עיר דוד CIty of David- Check out the website for more info about the City of David: http://www.cityofdavid.org.il/index.html

Me in the City of David

The highlight was walking in knee deep water in the dark through Hezekiah's (very narrow) Tunnel.  Who is Hezekiah, you ask?

<When the city was defending itself from the approaching Assyrian army in the 8th century bce, King Hezekiah decided to protect the water by diverting its flow deep into the city with an impressive tunnel system.  "Hezekiah also plugged the upper watercourse of the Gihon waters and brought it straight down to the west side of the City of David.  And Hezekiah prospered in all his works." (Chronicles II, 32:30)
This engineering feat was accomplished by  digging a 1,750-foot (533 meter) tunnel into the mountain.  An ancient stone carving found near the entrance describes this incredible operation.>

Hadag Nahash concert- http://hadagnahash.com/?lang=en

A bunch of us went to this hip hop/funk concert at a nearby awesome music venue.  It was amazing.  I realized I saw them a few years ago back in NYC at Jewzapalooza, a Jewish music festival held in Riverside Park.  I was only familiar with some of their songs, but was so impressed with their musicality.  I fell in love with one of the band members who sang, rapped, and played saxophone, flute, some sort of electric oboe, and more.  And boy could he move! I've never seen a guy make playing the flute look so sexy!  Someone told me where he hangs out in town so I am on a mission to make him my husband!  Wish me luck!

That's my man in the yellow shirt!

Seminars on Jewish History, Zionism, Israeli's Political Parties, Israeli Culture, & the Arab-Israeli Conflict- We really only touched upon some of the aspects of each of those topics but it was enough to put some things in context and incite some questions that we will all continue to think about during our time in Israel.

Machane Yehudah Shuk- I've ventured to the amazing market quite a few times now.  This is a place where you get great prices for fruit, vegetables, desserts, etc.  It's usually pretty crowded but we've figured out the better times to go so it's not so overwhelming. We also spent time there for part of the Israeli culture seminar when we "visited" 4 different countries.  We had Iraqi Kubbeh (minced meat in torpedo shaped fried bulgar shell), a delicious vegetarian Indian dish with dipping sauces, chocolate and cheese bourekas (puff pastry) from a Turkish place, and holistic beverages and remedies from Uzi Eli (Yemenite).

Ethan's reaction after tasting Uzi Eli's medicinal substance as Danit looks on

Dance classes- I checked out a local dance studio and took Hip Hop (with Denise) and Belly Dancing (with Denise, Nicole, and Olivia).   Both were lots of fun but we haven't had a chance to go back yet.

Family- I finally met my grandmother's first cousin, Menachem, and his wife Sara, who live in another neighborhood in Jerusalem. They had me over for lunch and it was really nice getting to know them. Menachem and my grandmother lost touch over the years and I am now putting them back in touch!

My visit with Menachem, my grandma's first cousin

Hebrew Ulpan- We had 3 weeks of intensive Hebrew classes (Sun-Thurs 9am-12:30pm).  Somehow I was placed in the Intermediate level ג Gimel/3.  We are only allowed to speak in Hebrew and our teacher only speaks in Hebrew.  It was really challenging for me because it has been over 5 years since I last took a Hebrew class.  We even took some field trips during which we learned about a place in Israel but only by speaking, reading, and listening to Hebrew.

Rachel, Amy, Denise, Me, Dina, & Avi on our Ulpan trip to Armon HaNatziv

Tolerance Monument פסל הסובלנות Armon Hanatziv nearby United Nations headquarters and between Jewish and Arab neighborhoods 

Somehow I got through the 3 weeks and a lot of my Hebrew came back to me.  I understand a lot of Hebrew but it is still very difficult for me to come up with sentences on my own.  I know I need to try more but it's intimidating.  We graduated and now I am in Level ד Dalet/4.  Now we only have it once a week for 2 hours and will have 2 more weeks throughout the program where we have the intensive hours again.  I have been avoiding doing my Ulpan homework for tomorrow's class all week so I think it's time for me to go to sleep so I can work on it before my internship tomorrow.  I'll discuss my internship in a later post as it's still in the early stages of development.

More to come soon!

Rewind: Birthdays

I apologize for not writing more often, but things got pretty busy here very quickly.  It's hard to believe I've already been here for over 5 weeks!  


At the beginning of our second week, we celebrated Ruth's birthday.  Most of our group joined her for dinner at Caffit, a dairy restaurant on Emek Refaim.  The food was DELICIOUS!  I had the Asian Oreganatto which was a mix between a salad and a stir fry.   I can't wait to go back again!

Yummy Asian Oreganatto

Ruth's Birthday Dessert, Josh looks longingly at the cake

After dinner, I joined Ruth, Josh, and Marlowe for some drinks at a nearby bar/restaurant, Selena, to continue the birthday celebration.  Ruth and I have the same taste in drinks- we love the sweet stuff- so we shared a delicious bottle of Moscato wine!  Josh had already become best buds with the bartender, Yehoshua (Hebrew name for Joshua), who gave us free shots of whiskey.  Needless to say, Josh drank them for us.

Later in the week, we threw a Jersey Shore themed party in honor of the multiple birthdays that all fell within a few weeks of each other (Seth, Ruth, Avi, and Vera).  For any of you who are familiar with the TV show, I think the following pictures will suffice for giving you an idea of what this party entailed... including lots of fist pumping!

Nicole mixing up some "Ron Ron Juice"

Ruth, Me, Olivia Jersey Shore-ing it up

Avi's birthday was at the end of September so we all went out to Spaghettim (Hebrew word for the plural form of Spaghetti).  Can you guess what their menu included?  I had a delicious salmon pasta dish as well as a white chocolate mousse dish for dessert!  

Isaac, Me, Birthday Girl Avi, and Olivia

Afterwards, we attempted to go to a dance club but had difficulty because they were only allowing people in who were 24 and up.  A decent amount of people in our group are 22 and 23, so we were told to come back on a different night.  Turns out dancing wasn't even going to start until midnight so we weren't missing out on anything at that point anyway.  Instead, we went to Mia Bar.  This bar has a chill vibe and an older crowd.  We were introduced to this bar earlier in the week when our counselor, Yonit, took us on a bar crawl to show us all of the cool bars/clubs/music venues that cater to an older crowd.  

More adventures coming soon...